In the field of communication protocols for multi-node communication systems various methods are known how to provide collision free arbitration.
For example, the FlexRay protocol is specified to use a TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) scheme for the static segment and a FTDMA (Flexible Time Division Multiple Access) type scheme using a dynamic minislotting based arrangement for the dynamic segment.
However, the dynamic minislotting based arrangement is susceptible to situations where some (asymmetric case) or all (symmetric case) nodes receive invalid communication elements. Such invalid communication elements can be either noise or invalid frames, i.e. frames that have, for example, been invalidated by noise. In general noise will be of shorter duration than invalid frames. Since noise is induced externally there is no node actively transmitting noise.
The dynamic minislotting-based arrangement relies on every node using a slot counter and slot identification numbers that are uniquely allocated to the nodes. To avoid collisions the slot counter needs to remain consistent among the nodes throughout the dynamic segment. Various noise conditions can break the consistency of the slot counter ultimately leading to collisions on the network.